Is this the same Coventry team that did a job on us?

Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
Yep, nowhere near when it mattered. Not rubbish at all.

Oh, hang on, we were cheated again.
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We weren't nowhere near, we weren't rubbish either.

Styles make games, Coventry's style and tactics made the tie winnable for them. Doesn't mean they are a better side, the table tells you that.

I said before that final match that we needed to beat Coventry because they were a dangerous side that matched up well with us, I was correct. Their strengths paired well with our weaknesses. I said that we would beat any of the other sides in play off contention but needed to avoid Cov, it's just the way it fell for us.

We'll finish above them again next season
 
watched the game and feel more down than when we got beat at the riverside, What Carrick must be thinking getting beat of a woeful Cov team. We bottled it at the riverside ,,,,
 
I think we were victims of our own sucess. Too injured and too knackered. Sure, gutted and disappointed, but understandable too in the same breath. I am not down about it. Carrick knows what’s needed. He’s a winner, we go again.
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
Sorry, but don't agree with this at all.

Coventry are a counter attacking team, but they were even more negative in the second leg against us, with 10 men behind the ball, reliant upon modest counter attacks and set pieces.

It was a game plan that only works maybe one in five games, but equally we didn't do enough to break them down.

Today they had to be more positive of course and it opened them up a bit.
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Did you even watch the game?

They didn’t have to be more positive, they set-up in EXACTLY the same way as they did in the 2nd leg with the 2nd striker dropped for the extra midfielder, and Luton wiped the floor with them.

They were only more positive in the 2nd half when Robins correctly realised it wasn’t working and took off the extra midfielder for the 2nd striker. They were then the much better team and on the front foot until Hamer came off.

If Carrick had realised it wasn’t working at half time in our game (because it wasn’t) and made changes we probably go on to win the game. But he waited until we went a goal down which allowed them to park the bus and waste time.
 
InglebyUTB said:
Did you even watch the game?

They didn’t have to be more positive, they set-up in EXACTLY the same way as they did in the 2nd leg with the 2nd striker dropped for the extra midfielder, and Luton wiped the floor with them.

They were only more positive in the 2nd half when Robins correctly realised it wasn’t working and took off the extra midfielder for the 2nd striker. They were then the much better team and on the front foot until Hamer came off.

If Carrick had realised it wasn’t working at half time in our game (because it wasn’t) and made changes we probably go on to win the game. But he waited until we went a goal down which allowed them to park the bus and waste time.
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You've just explained why they needed to be more positive.

Aren't you just agreeing with what Jonny said?
 
I’m glad Coventry lost, I know everybody does it now, but I can’t forget my frustration in the second half when the ball was on the top of the net for about a minute and their keeper just ignored it seemed almost to be unaware that there was a ball in the stadium.

Interesting what happens now there, looks like they will lose their two best players up front but perhaps more importantly they run the real risk of losing the manager to one of the two teams relegated this afternoon and he really has done so well for them.
 
InglebyUTB said:
Did you even watch the game?

They didn’t have to be more positive, they set-up in EXACTLY the same way as they did in the 2nd leg with the 2nd striker dropped for the extra midfielder, and Luton wiped the floor with them.

They were only more positive in the 2nd half when Robins correctly realised it wasn’t working and took off the extra midfielder for the 2nd striker. They were then the much better team and on the front foot until Hamer came off.

If Carrick had realised it wasn’t working at half time in our game (because it wasn’t) and made changes we probably go on to win the game. But he waited until we went a goal down which allowed them to park the bus and waste time.
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I think these games are decided on such fine margins that tactics, game plans etc, rely on a little bit of luck.

As it was a single goal over two games decided it, in a game that saw us fail to win at home for only the second time (under Carrick, Burnley being the other) and fail to score at home for the first time.

I think Coventry has one shot on target in the second game.
 
BoroMart said:
I said before that final match that we needed to beat Coventry because they were a dangerous side that matched up well with us, I was correct. Their strengths paired well with our weaknesses. I said that we would beat any of the other sides in play off contention but needed to avoid Cov, it's just the way it fell for us.
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That’s spot on. I was another who said that they were the only one of the five possible semi-final opponents that we needed to fear. Precisely because they could do such a job on us in a one off match.

Which is why we should’ve tried harder than we appeared to to take all three of the opportunities we had, and to avoid ending up with that one off second half scenario. If we had won the first game, where at times we were massively on top, the second and third wouldn’t have happened at all, something which was highly likely even without hindsight. If we had won the second, where again we had some significant spells of dominance, they couldn’t have set up in the same way for the third.

It’s possible we just ran out of steam with the injuries, but there was a feeling that at least to some extent we let them off the hook a bit tactically in both of those first two, with the sentiment expressed on here, and even to some extent by the manager, that it didn’t really matter that we had done so. It did. We were very close, and fine margins matter. You need to take all your opportunities to get those fine marginal edges.
 
Coventry adapted their game to neutralise our threats. They stopped us playing through the middle in that second leg and it made the entire game a “first goal wins” situation. Fair enough it’s what we would have done if it played to our strengths.

I think it would have been a very different first leg if we had Ramsey, Howson and Fry back. But alas, that’s football.

Both teams were going to struggle on that big Wembley pitch. Good luck to Luton.
 
theredrooster said:
It's the rule about scoring directly after handling in the build up. If unintentional, but you benefit from it then it has to be disallowed. If he'd have squared it then it becomes another phase of play and doesn't count and the goal stands, do you not remember Watmore's part in the Crooks goal at Old Trafford in the cup?
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It's not that it becomes "another phase of play," it's because a different player scores the goal. For accidental handling to be given as an offence, the law says the goal must be scored a) by the same player who handled the ball and b) either:

directly from their hand/arm
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or
immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm
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InglebyUTB said:
He’s saying they were more positive today, they weren’t until they were 1-0 down and he changed the shape at HT.
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So they were more positive then? Because they had to be.

Which is what Jonny said. I don't think he said at any point they were more positive from kick off, just that they had to be more positive. Which you agree with!
 
festa5 said:
So they were more positive then? Because they had to be.

Which is what Jonny said. I don't think he said at any point they were more positive from kick off, just that they had to be more positive. Which you agree with!
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Read my post he disagrees with.

His point was Luton were able to do what they did because Coventry had to be more positive and were more open, which is the opposite of what happened.

They set-up exactly the same way as they did against us, and failed miserably. So they had to change things, bring a 2nd striker on and play more openly. They were then much better team and probably win the game if Hamer stays on.
 
InglebyUTB said:
They didn’t have to be more positive, they set-up in EXACTLY the same way as they did in the 2nd leg with the 2nd striker dropped for the extra midfielder, and Luton wiped the floor with them.
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What Luton have that we don’t is height, strength, power. If a team sits deep against them, they can lob the ball into the box and cause all kinds of problems. Against a footballing side it’s probably a little easier to sit deep and close the gaps. It takes huge discipline to do that for 90 or 180 mins but they managed it.

This is why didn’t want to play cov for n the play offs. They had spent most of the season defending well and hitting on the break. If we’d played Sunderland we would have put footballer them, millwall wouldn’t have been able to defend that well for 90, they don’t have the midfield legs to close gaps, and Luton we’d have passed through and into the space behind their adventurous wingbacks. Cov were the worst side for us.

Hopefully our recruitment will include a 6 foot 2 bull of a CF allowing us to do things differently if we need to
 
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InglebyUTB said:
He’s saying they were more positive today, they weren’t until they were 1-0 down and he changed the shape at HT.
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I think the difference between our second leg and the final, if its not obvious, ia that Luton scored and they had to open up a bit more, which they did.

Suggesting Luton 'wiped the floor' against Coventry, when they only went though on pens is a bit of a stretch too.
 
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